Resumen de La delimitación y organización espacial de las áreas metropolitanas españolas: una perspectiva desde la movilidad residencia-trabajo
The paper aims to air some issues relevant to Spanish metropolitan areas by an analysis of commuting. This variable, as international experience of the same has made patent, is a powerful tool both for the defi ning of metropolitan areas and the description and explanation of their functional and spatial processes. Three directly linked aspects are gone into by the author. First the main results of the defi nition process of metropolitan areas are laid out, these being basically the number, dimension and hierarchical organization of the Spanish metropolitan system then second, different types of metropolitan spatial structures are presented. Finally an analytical approach to the diversity and heterogeneous character of Spanish metropolitan areas is suggested along with the establishing of a tentative sequence of phases of metropolitan evolution and gathering complexity in keeping with their scale of commuting the punctual characteristics of this The author concludes that the present-day Spanish city is metropolitan, hierarchically ranked, heterogeneous and diverse, whose managing must then fi t this reality.
